5 days ago
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We’re guessing the 22-year-old Brazilian is actively looking for a move but on paper he would at least make a plausible transfer target.
With Nottingham Forest flying high to start the 2024-25 Premier League season and Nuno Espírito Santo’s Tricky Trees sat level on points with third-place Chelsea after eleven games played, one of the top reasons why has been centre half Murillo.
The 22-year-old Brazilian is in his second season with the club after arriving in 2023 from Corinthians in a £12.5M deal, and he has been key to Forest having the second best defensive record—behind Liverpool—in England’s top flight so far this season.
The problem for a club like Forest, though, is that no matter where they end the current campaign, it’s going to be difficult to keep Murillo long-term, and the November international break has brought a wave of stories linking him with a move.
While any links remain tenuous at best—with the likes of Football Insider and Sports Illustrated talking it up—he is now being linked with Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Liverpool and a supposed £70M price tag has been attached to the centre half.
If there is any genuine foundation to the transfer chatter, it seems likeliest to be coming from the player’s camp, an agent looking to drum up interest for a big money move to a more traditional power for his client over the next window or two.
From a Liverpool standpoint, perhaps the biggest question about the suitability of his profile would be that he stands 1.84m (6’), which is shorter than the Reds have tended to recruit at the position—though that might change with the new regime.
Whether the Reds might be serious suitors, then, or just a useful name to throw to the rumour mongers is a fair question, but while the price is high there’s certainly been much in Murillo’s Forest performances that would make him a plausible target.
